The “Pygoyan Gap”- Identified Mental Time Gap Between
Naturalistic and Abstract Painting

Rodney
Pygoya Chang, M.A., M.S.Ed., Ph.D.
April 10, 2008

For
over 20 years as a digital artist I have avoided the genre of naturalistic
imagery.Why copy nature? I
thought to myself.Within the realm
of the abstract was the challenge of starting from scratch.Through partnership with the personal computer was the opportunity to
visualize the formerly unseen, to unearth new art, to discover new vision. It
has been a marvelous life experience to remain loyal to this calling to explore
the abstract that is capable of being visualized through the digital medium.I’ve had my work exhibited in museums, show opportunities scattered
like buckshot over the decades.But
sales remain minimal, not sufficient to earn me a living. But that was never the
primary motivation. I felt confident profits would eventually come by
pursuing excellence and discovery in the visual arts. By making history in
the emerging art medium, integral to the new century's digital cultural
revolution.

Turning 60 years of age triggered an
immediate practical perspective on how to expend my present artistic life.Maybe, I thought, Ishould start making what the market wants. I
always had confidence that if I choose to produce for its demand, I would
be financially successful at it.Suddenly at this mature milestone in life, there emerged the
desire to gain success in the only criteria of my art efforts that I considered
myself yet a failure.To sell
stuff. So I began a series of works with such an intent- to not just prove to
myself that my works can be financially successful, but also to those around me
who viewed me as a “starving artist” fanatic, fortunate to be buffered from
the demands of real life by my day job as a dentist.

My new works start with my photographs of
beautiful Hawaii that are infused with personal expression through digital photo
manipulation, then finally materialized as "output," in the form of
oil-on-canvas paintings.It was
refreshing to discover that I do like these realistic landscapes as much
as I like my routine abstract work.I
felt good about the results and comfortable with myself.I'm so excited about this direction of my art that I now contemplate publishing
another art book of my works,
this one including “Nature” and “Abstract” in the titling.

The start of my current digital nature series
began with the profit motive.But doing the lifelong rejected, the disregarded, and the undesirable has
unexpectedly revealed new art psychological insight to me!

I have commissioned painters to work for me since
1985. Completed landscape oil
paintings arrive in email to gain approval for shipping. I have been
showing them to people around me.The
subjects as experimental observers provide me subjective responses to the new
visual stimuli (artworks). Those immediately available happen to be relatives
and dental patients.Through these
initial and impromptu reactions,I
have discovered the following about ourselves as a species-

For
such attractive realistic landscape
paintings, there is an INSTANT REACTION of art appreciation.It is as if something in the psyche is triggered.There is no hesitation of response.The results so far has been as predictable as winning in poker with a
loaded (card) deck.Everybody loves
my “new work.”I get responses
like “Now this is what I like;”“This is your best work ever!”Huh?

Then a predictable second response follows, as captured in the remark,
“It looks so realistic that it must have taken you a long time to
complete.” This is an indirect prying way to ask, "So how
painstakingly long did it take to
paint?"

I have always known that fine craftsmanship
necessitating tedious labor contributes to appreciation of art-making results.
To do the time to craft well helps sell the work.It seems collectors like to own art that was arduous to construct. No
pain, no gain. In essence they are paying not only for the piece, but also
for the artist’s time and tedious labor to produce the product. Maybe this is one reason digital art is a tough
sell.It seems too easy to make.I’ve personally adjusted to this prejudice towards the dubious art
medium by dubbing myself a “digital painting designer,” as a replacement for
my former label of “digital artist.” I continue to prefer spending my
creative time with inspiration for the sake of aesthetic exploration.
It is not selfishness with my creative time but my methodology for enhanced
efficiency and increased production, as expected of an artist using high
technology. I turn over the captured digital imagery to
professional painters, astute in replicating what’s captured in my digital
visual data.I pay for their labor
to output my digital visions.The
collaboration materializes my virtual art for the brick n’ mortar world of
objects, be it a painting, print, or sculpture.

But what’s new that I have discovered,
now dabbling in landscape realism, is that there is a momentary pause of the viewer when looking at
the abstract that isn’t present when peering at the realistic landscape
artwork.The time lapse of silence, before the utterance of a personal judgment,
can be a mere second but as long as a few more seconds.Call it introspection.But I
hypothesize that it is a mental confrontation with the unknown, a sudden
challenge to have to decipher “What is it?” before the mind can then judge
“Do I like it?”These two
imperative internal questions must be answered before the mind can leap to
“Do I want to live
with it?” which in turn can lead to the conclusive“I
want to buy it!”

Why this gap of response –which I hereby
dub the Pygoyan gap – in comparative viewer response time between the
landscape and the abstract?Here’s
my take on this identified phenomenon in art perception and appreciation:

We as humans have a built-in conditioning
to appreciate naturalistic artwork.We
have evolved over millions of years in an environment and continue to live in
nature.Those who reside in a big city environment yearn for a
vacation in “the country.”It’s
instinctive.Might not our affinity
for naturalistic artwork be, dare I say, inherited?Genetic?Maybe a
part of what the great psychologist Carl Jung calls our shared “universal
consciousness?”With my new
awareness of the existence of the Pygoyan gap, I now reconsider what it
means when someone defensively says, “I know what I like” while viewing art
that is dumbfounding.I
wonder if that person's sense of artistic taste is derived and actually quite
impersonal, an artistic bias embedded in the origin of the species.

All trained artists know that the building
blocks of naturalistic imagery are hidden abstract forms.For example a mountain can have a conical form, a leaf a
triangular shape.A massive tree
trunk’s visual infrastructure is an upright rectangle.Maybe looking at abstract work is not natural to our eyes.We are not adapted to seeing the underpinnings of nature.But dedicated looking by educating the eye through due diligence in
practice and extended exposure to the arts can teach appreciation of such hidden
elements of natural representation.

But for most, the lay “masses,”
representational artwork provides instant gratification.That potentially skews sales and higher returns for realistic art.There is no injustice here against abstract art.
It’s just the nature of the beast.

A parting thought – what if I replace
the idyllic paradisiacal landscape with a painting of less inviting scenery,
such as the harsh southeastern New Mexican desert? Would this retard or even
cancel out the Pygoyan gap effect?Hmm,
I wonder...

This scientific curiosity may indeed lead to an intentionally
ugly or menacing landscape series, definitely retarding or even canceling out
its profitability. (Unless one loves the broiling inhospitable desert, crawling with scorpions, tarantulas,
and rattlesnakes.) Hmmm, inspiring thought to provoke me to later divorce my
effort in amiable landscape imagery,
comfortably rooted in Romanticism, and move on.

Side
note: "Creativity" is the correlating of two or more things when they has
never been associated before. Try it. Fill in the blanks: _______ and
_______ can make/improve/ _______ by _______; or, _____ is like ______ because...
Getting into realistic landscapes besides my regular abstract work did stir up
the creative notion of the Pygoyan gap.

Life
lesson: As a lifelong abstractionist, working on realistic landscapes
provided an experimental "confounding variable" that
unexpectedly made my
regular abstract work the "control group." This provided heuristic insight that led to personal artistic growth.
Moral: Don't be afraid to explore outside your self-imposed boundaries!